CHAPTER I

OUR VOCABULARY

The bulk of our literary language is Latin, and consists of words either borrowed directly or taken from "learned" French forms. The every-day vocabulary of the less educated is of Old English, commonly called Anglo-Saxon, origin; and from the same source comes what we may call the machinery of the language, _i.e._, its inflexions, numerals, pronouns, prepositions, and conjunctions. Along with Anglo-Saxon, we find a considerable number of words from the related Norse languages, this element being naturally strongest in the dialects of the north and east of England. The third great element of our working vocabulary is furnished by Old French, _i.e._, the language naturally developed from the spoken Latin of the Roman soldiers and colonists, generally called Vulgar Latin. To its composite character English owes its unequalled richness in expression. For most ideas we have three separate terms, or groups of terms, which, often starting from the same metaphor, serve to express different shades of meaning. Thus a deed done with malice _prepense_ (an Old French compound from Lat. _pensare_, to weigh), is _deliberate_ or _pondered_, both Latin words which mean literally "weighed"; but the four words convey four distinct shades of meaning. The Gk. _sympathy_ is Lat. _compassion_, rendered in English by _fellow-feeling_.

Sometimes a native word has been completely supplanted by a loan word, _e.g._, Anglo-Sax. _here_, army (_cf._ Ger. _Heer_), gave way to Old Fr. _(h)ost_ (p. 158). This in its turn was replaced by _army_, Fr. _armee_, which, like its Spanish doublet _armada_, is really a feminine past participle with some word for host, band, etc., understood. _Here_ has survived in _Hereford_, _harbour_ (p. 164), _harbinger_ (p. 90), etc., and in the verb _harry_ (_cf._ Ger. _verheeren_, to harry).

Or a native word may persist in some special sense, e.g., _weed_, a general term for garment in Shakespeare--

"And there the snake throws her enamel'd skin, _Weed_ wide enough to wrap a fairy in." (_Midsummer Night's Dream_, ii. 2.)

survives in "widow's _weeds_." _Chare_, a turn of work--

"the maid that milks And does the meanest _chares_." (_Antony and Cleopatra_, iv. 15.)

has given us _charwoman_, and persists as American _chore_--

"Sharlee was ... concluding the post-prandial _chores_." (H. S. HARRISON, _Queed_, Ch. 17.)

_Sake_, cognate with Ger. _Sache_, thing, cause, and originally meaning a contention at law, has been replaced by _cause_, except in phrases beginning with the preposition _for_. See also _bead_ (p. 74). _Unkempt_, uncombed, and _uncouth_, unknown, are fossil remains of obsolete verb forms.

In addition to these main constituents of our language, we have borrowed words, sometimes in considerable numbers, sometimes singly and accidentally, from almost every tongue known to mankind, and every year sees new words added to our vocabulary. The following chapters deal especially with words borrowed from Old French and from the other Romance languages, their origins and journeyings, and the various accidents that have befallen them in English. It is in such words as these that the romance of language is best exemplified, because we can usually trace their history from Latin to modern English, while the earlier history of Anglo-Saxon words is a matter for the philologist.

[Page Heading: LATIN WORDS]

Words borrowed directly from Latin or Greek lack this intermediate experience, though the study of their original meanings is full of surprises. This, however, is merely a question of opening a Latin or Greek dictionary, if we have not time for the moment's reflexion which would serve the same purpose. Thus, to take a dozen examples at random, to _abominate_[6] is to turn shuddering from the evil _omen_, a _generous_ man is a man of "race" (_genus_), an _innuendo_ can be conveyed "by nodding," to _insult_ is to "jump on," a _legend_ is something "to be read," a _manual_ is a "hand-book," an _obligation_ is essentially "binding," to _relent_ is to "go slow," _rivals_ are people living by the same "stream"[7] (_rivus_), a _salary_ is an allowance for "salt" (_sal_), a _supercilious_ man is fond of lifting his "eyebrows" (_supercilium_), and a _trivial_ matter is so commonplace that it can be picked up at the meeting of "three ways" (_trivium_). _Dexterity_ implies skill with the "right" hand (_dexter_), while _sinister_ preserves the superstition of the ill-omened "left."

It may be remarked here that the number of Latin words used in their unaltered form in every-day English is larger than is generally realised. Besides such phrases as _bona-fide_, _post-mortem_, _viva-voce_, or such abbreviations as A.M., _ante meridiem_, D.V., _Deo volente_, and L. s. d., for _librae_, _solidi_, _denarii_, we have, without including scientific terms, many Latin nouns, e.g., _animal_, _genius_, _index_, _odium_, _omen_, _premium_, _radius_, _scintilla_, _stimulus_, _tribunal_, and adjectives, e.g., _complex_, _lucifer_, _miser_, _pauper_, _maximum_, _senior_, and the ungrammatical _bonus_. The Lat. _veto_, I forbid, has been worked hard of late. The stage has given us _exit_, he goes out, and the Universities _exeat_, let him go out, while law language contains a number of Latin verb forms, e.g., _affidavit_ (late Latin), he has testified, _caveat_, let him beware, _cognovit_, he has recognised--

"You gave them a _cognovit_ for the amount of your costs after the trial, I'm told." (_Pickwick_, Ch. 46.)

due to the initial words of certain documents. Similarly _item_, also, is the first word in each paragraph of an inventory. With this we may compare the _purview_ of a statute, from the Old Fr. _pourveu_ (_pourvu_), provided, with which it used to begin. A _tenet_ is what one "holds." _Fiat_ means "let it be done." When Mr Weller lamented--

"Oh, Sammy, Sammy, vy worn't there a _alleybi_?" (_Pickwick_, Ch. 34.)

it is safe to say that he was not consciously using the Latin adverb _alibi_, elsewhere, nor is the printer who puts in a _viz._ always aware that this is an old abbreviation for _videlicet_, i.e., _videre licet_, it is permissible to see. A _nostrum_ is "our" unfailing remedy, and _tandem_, at length, instead of side by side, is a university joke.

[Page Heading: INFLECTED LATIN FORMS]

Sometimes we have inflected forms of Latin words. A _rebus_[8] is a word or phrase represented "by things." _Requiem_, accusative of _requies_, rest, is the first word of the introit used in the mass for the dead--

"_Requiem_ aeternam dona eis, Domine,"

while _dirge_ is the Latin imperative _dirige_, from the antiphon in the same service--

"_Dirige_, Domine meus, in conspectu tuo viam meam."

The spelling _dirige_ was once common--

"Also I byqwethe to eche of the paryshe prystys beying at my _dyryge_ and masse xiid." (Will of John Perfay, of Bury St. Edmunds, 1509.)

_Query_ was formerly written _quaere_, seek, and _plaudit_ is for _plaudite_, clap your hands, the appeal of the Roman actors to the audience at the conclusion of the play--

"Nunc, spectatores, Iovis summi causa clare _plaudite_." (PLAUTUS, _Amphitruo_.)

_Debenture_ is for _debentur_, there are owing. _Dominie_ is the Latin vocative _domine_, formerly used by schoolboys in addressing their master, while _pandy_, a stroke on the hand with a cane, is from _pande palmam_, hold out your hand. _Parse_ is the Lat. _pars_, occurring in the question _Quae pars orationis?_ What part of speech? _Omnibus_, for all, is a dative plural. _Limbo_ is the ablative of Lat. _limbus_, an edge, hem, in the phrase "in _limbo_ patrum," where _limbus_ is used for the abode of the Old Testament saints on the verge of Hades. It is already jocular in Shakespeare--

"I have some of 'em in _limbo_ patrum, and there they are like to dance these three days." (_Henry VIII._, v. 3.)

_Folio_, _quarto_, etc., are ablatives, from the phrases _in folio_, _in quarto_, etc., still used in French. _Premises_, earlier _premisses_, is a slightly disguised Lat. _praemissas_, the aforesaid, lit. sent before, used in deeds to avoid repeating the full description of a property. It is thus the same word as logical _premisses_, or assumptions. _Quorum_ is from a legal formula giving a list of persons "of whom" a certain number must be present. A _teetotum_ is so called because it has, or once had, on one of its sides, a _T_ standing for _totum_, all. It was also called simply a _totum_. The other three sides also bore letters to indicate what share, if any, of the stake they represented. Cotgrave has _totum_ (_toton_), "a kind of game with a whirle-bone." In spite of the interesting anecdote about the temperance orator with an impediment in his speech, it was probably _teetotum_ that suggested _teetotaller_.

We have also a few words straight from Greek, e.g., _analysis_, _aroma_, _atlas_, the world-sustaining demi-god whose picture used to decorate map-books, _colon_, _comma_, _dogma_, _epitome_, _miasma_, _nausea_, Gk. {nausia}, lit. sea-sickness, _nectar_, whence the fruit called a _nectarine_--

"_Nectarine_ fruits which the compliant boughs Yielded them, sidelong as they sat recline." (_Paradise Lost_, iv. 332.)

_pathos_, _python_, _pyx_, _synopsis_, etc.; but most of our Greek words have passed through French _via_ Latin, or are newly manufactured scientific terms, often most unscientifically constructed.

_Gamut_ contains the Gk. _gamma_ and the Latin conjunction _ut_. Guy d'Arezzo, who flourished in the 11th century, is said to have introduced the method of indicating the notes by the letters _a_ to _g_. For the note below _a_ he used the Gk. _gamma_. To him is attributed also the series of monosyllables by which the notes are also indicated. They are supposed to be taken from a Latin hymn to St John--

_Ut_ queant laxis _re_sonare fibris _Mi_ra gestorum _fa_muli tuorum _Sol_ve polluti _la_bii reatum _S_ancte _I_ohannes.

_Do_ is sometimes substituted for _ut_ in French, and always in modern English.

[Page Heading: FRENCH DIALECTS]

In considering the Old French element in English, one has to bear in mind a few elementary philological facts. Nearly all French nouns and adjectives are derived from the accusative. I give, for simplicity, the nominative, adding the stem in the case of imparisyllabic words. The foundation of French is Vulgar Latin, which differs considerably from that we study at school. I only give Vulgar Latin forms where it cannot be avoided. For instance, in dealing with _culverin_ (p. 38), I connect Fr. _couleuvre_, adder, with Lat. _col[)u]ber_, a snake. Every Romance philologist knows that it must represent Vulgar Lat. _*colobra_; but this form, which, being conjectural, is marked with an asterisk, had better be forgotten by the general reader.

Our modern English words often preserve a French form which no longer exists, or they are taken from dialects, especially those of Normandy and Picardy, which differ greatly from that of Paris. The word _caudle_ illustrates both these points. It is the same word as modern Fr. _chaudeau_, "a _caudle_; or, warme broth" (Cotgrave), but it preserves the Old French[9] _-el_ for _-eau_, and the Picard _c-_ for _ch-_. An uncomfortable bridle which used to be employed to silence scolds was called the _branks_. It is a Scottish word, originally applied to a bridle improvised from a halter with a wooden "cheek" each side to prevent it from slipping--

"And then its shanks, They were as thin, as sharp and sma' As cheeks o' _branks_." (BURNS, _Death and Doctor Hornbook_, vii. 4.)

These cheeks correspond to the two parallel levers called the "branches" of a bridle, and _brank_ is the Norman _branque_, branch. All the meanings of _patch_ answer to those of Fr. _piece_. It comes from the Old French dialect form _peche_, as _match_ comes from _meche_, and _cratch_, a manger, from _creche_, of German origin, and ultimately the same word as _crib_. _Cratch_ is now replaced, except in dialect, by _manger_, Fr. _mangeoire_, from _manger_, to eat, but it was the regular word in Mid. English--

"Sche childide her firste born sone, and wlappide him in clothis, and puttide in a _cracche_." (WYCLIF, _Luke_, ii. 7.)

_Pew_ is from Old Fr. _puy_, a stage, eminence, Lat. _podium_, which survives in _Puy de Dome_, the mountain in Auvergne on which Pascal made his experiments with the barometer. _Dupuy_ is a common family name in France, but the _Depews_ of the West Indies have kept the older pronunciation.

Many Old French words which live on in England are obsolete in France. _Chime_ is Old Fr. _chimbe_ from Greco-Lat. _cymbalum_. Minsheu (1617) derived _dismal_ from Lat. _dies mali_, evil days. This, says Trench, "is exactly one of those plausible etymologies which one learns after a while to reject with contempt." But Minsheu is substantially right, if we substitute Old Fr. _dis mal_, which is found as early as 1256. Old Fr. _di_, a day, also survives in the names of the days of the week, _lundi_, etc. In _remainder_ and _remnant_ we have the infinitive and present participle of an obsolete Old French verb derived from Lat. _reman[=e]re_. _Manor_ and _power_ are also Old French infinitives, the first now only used as a noun (_manoir_), the second represented by _pouvoir_. _Misnomer_ is the Anglo-French infinitive, "to misname."

[Page Heading: INFLECTED FRENCH FORMS]

In some cases we have preserved meanings now obsolete in French. _Trump_, in cards, is Fr. _triomphe_, "the card game called ruffe, or _trump_; also, the ruffe, or _trump_ at it" (Cotgrave), but the modern French word for trump is _atout_, to all. _Rappee_ is for obsolete Fr. (tabac) _rape_, pulverised, rasped. Fr. _talon_, heel, from Vulgar Lat. _*talo_, _talon-_, for _talus_, was applied by falconers to the heel claw of the hawk. This meaning, obsolete in French, has persisted in English. The _mizen_ mast is the rearmost of three, but the Fr. _mat de misaine_ is the fore-mast, and both come from Ital. _mezzana_ middle, "also the poop or _mizensail_[10] in a ship" (Torriano).

As in the case of Latin, we have some inflected French forms in English. _Lampoon_ is from the archaic Fr. _lampon_, "a drunken song" (Miege, _French Dict._, 1688). This is coined from the imperative _lampons_, let us drink, regularly used as a refrain in seditious and satirical songs. For the formation we may compare American _vamose_, to skedaddle, from Span. _vamos_, let us go. The military _revelly_ is the French imperative _reveillez_, wake up, but in the French army it is called the _diane_. The _gist_ of a matter is the point in which its importance really "lies." _Ci-git_, for Old Fr. _ci-gist_, Lat. _jacet_, here lies, is seen on old tombstones. _Tennis_, says Minsheu, is so called from Fr. _tenez_, hold, "which word the Frenchmen, the onely tennis-players, use to speake when they strike the ball." This etymology, for a long time regarded as a wild guess, has been shewn by recent research to be most probably correct. The game is of French origin, and it was played by French knights in Italy a century before we find it alluded to by Gower (c. 1400). Erasmus tells us that the server called out _accipe_, to which his opponent replied _mitte_, and as French, and not Latin, was certainly the language of the earliest tennis-players, we may infer that the spectators named the game from the foreign word with which each service began. In French the game is called _paume_, palm of the hand; cf. _fives_, also a slang name for the hand. The archaic _assoil_--

"And the holy man he _assoil'd_ us, and sadly we sail'd away." (TENNYSON, _Voyage of Maeldune_, xi. 12.)

is the present subjunctive of the Old Fr. _asoldre_ (_absoudre_), to absolve, used in the stereotyped phrase _Dieus asoile_, may God absolve.

A linguistic invasion such as that of English by Old French is almost unparalleled. We have instances of the expulsion of one tongue by another, _e.g._, of the Celtic dialects of Gaul by Latin and of those of Britain by Anglo-Saxon. But a real blending of two languages can only occur when a large section of the population is bilingual for centuries. This, as we know, was the case in England. The Norman dialect, already familiar through inevitable intercourse, was transplanted to England in 1066. It developed further on its own lines into Anglo-Norman, and then, mixed with other French dialects, for not all the invaders were Normans, and political events brought various French provinces into relation with England, it produced Anglo-French, a somewhat barbarous tongue which was the official language till 1362, and with which our legal jargon is saturated. We find in Anglo-French many words which are unrecorded in continental Old French, among them one which we like to think of as essentially English, viz., _duete_, duty, an abstract formed from the past participle of Fr. _devoir_. This verb has also given us _endeavour_, due to the phrase _se mettre en devoir_--

"Je me suis _en debvoir_ mis pour moderer sa cholere tyrannicque."[11] (_Rabelais_, i. 29.)

[Page Heading: NEOLOGISMS]

No dictionary can keep up with the growth of a language. The _New English Dictionary_ had done the letter _C_ before the _cinematograph_ arrived, but got it in under _K_. Words of this kind are manufactured in such numbers that the lexicographer is inclined to wait and see whether they will catch on. In such cases it is hard to prophesy. The population of this country may be divided into those people who have been operated for _appendicitis_ and those who are going to be. Yet this word was considered too rare and obscure for insertion in the first volume of the _New English Dictionary_ (1888), the greatest word-book that has ever been projected. _Sabotage_ looks, unfortunately, as if it had come to stay. It is a derivative of _saboter_, to scamp work, from _sabot_, a wooden shoe, used contemptuously of an inferior article. The great French dictionaries do not know it in its latest sense of malicious damage done by strikers, and the _New English Dictionary_, which finished _Sa-_ in the year 1912, just missed it. _Hooligan_ is not recorded by the _New English Dictionary_. The original _Hooligans_ were a spirited Irish family of that name whose proceedings enlivened the drab monotony of life in Southwark towards the end of the 19th century. The word is younger than the Australian _larrikin_, of doubtful origin (see p. 190), but older than Fr. _apache_. The adoption of the Red Indian name _Apache_ for a modern Parisian bravo is a curious parallel to the 18th-century use of _Mohock_ (Mohawk) for an aristocratic London ruffler.

_Heckle_ is first recorded in its political sense for 1880. The _New English Dictionary_ quotes it from _Punch_ in connection with the Fourth Party. In Scottish, however, it is old in this sense, so that it is an example of a dialect word that has risen late in life. Its southern form _hatchell_ is common in Mid. English in its proper sense of "teasing" hemp or flax, and the metaphor is exactly the same. _Tease_, earlier _toose_, means to pluck or pull to pieces, hence the name _teasel_ for the thistle used by wool-carders. The older form is seen in the derivative _tousle_, the family name _Tozer_, and the dog's name _Towser_. _Feckless_, a common Scottish word, was hardly literary English before Carlyle. It is now quite familiar--

"Thriftless, shiftless, _feckless_." (Mr LLOYD GEORGE, 1st Nov. 1911.)

There is a certain appropriateness in the fact that almost the first writer to use it was James I. It is for _effectless_. I never heard of a _week-end_ till I paid a visit to Lancashire in 1883. It has long since invaded the whole island. An old _geezer_ has a modern sound, but it is the medieval _guiser_, _guisard_, mummer, which has persisted in dialect and re-entered the language.

[Page Heading: WORDS DUE TO ACCIDENT]

The fortunes of a word are sometimes determined by accident. _Glamour_ (see p. 145) was popularised by Scott, who found it in old ballad literature. _Grail_, the holy dish at the Last Supper, would be much less familiar but for Tennyson. _Mascot_, from a Provencal word meaning sorcerer, dates from Audran's operetta _La Mascotte_ (1880). _Jingo_ first appears in conjurors' jargon of the 17th century. It has been conjectured to represent Basque _jinko_, God, picked up by sailors. If this is the case, it is probably the only pure Basque word in English. The Ingoldsby derivation from St Gengulphus--

"Sometimes styled 'The Living _Jingo_,' from the great tenaciousness of vitality exhibited by his severed members,"

is of course a joke. In 1878, when war with Russia seemed imminent, a music-hall singer, the Great Macdermott, delighted large audiences with--

"We don't want to fight, but, by _Jingo_, if we do, We've got the ships, we've got the men, we've got the money too."

Hence the name _jingo_ applied to that ultra-patriotic section of the population which, in war-time, attends to the shouting.[12] Fr. _chauvin_, a jingo, is the name of a real Napoleonic veteran introduced into Scribe's play _Le Soldat Laboureur_. _Barracking_ is known to us only through the visits of English cricket teams to Australia. It is said to come from a native Australian word meaning derision. The American _caucus_ was first applied (1878) by Lord Beaconsfield to the Birmingham Six Hundred. In 18th-century American it means meeting or discussion. It is probably connected with a North American Indian (Algonkin) word meaning counsellor, an etymology supported by that of _pow-wow_, a palaver or confab, which is the Algonkin for a medicine-man. With these words may be mentioned _Tammany_, now used of a famous political body, but, in the 18th century, of a society named after the "tutelar saint" of Pennsylvania. The original Tammany was an Indian chief with whom William Penn negotiated for grants of land about the end of the 17th century. _Littoral_ first became familiar in connection with Italy's ill-starred Abyssinian adventure, and _hinterland_ marked the appearance of Germany as a colonial power--

"'Let us glance a moment,' said Mr Queed, 'at Man, as we see him first emerging from the dark _hinterlands_ of history.'" (H. S. HARRISON, _Queed_, Ch. 17.)

[Page Heading: BLUNDERS]

Sometimes the blunder of a great writer has enriched the language. Scott's _bartisan_--

"Its varying circle did combine Bulwark, and _bartisan_, and line And bastion, tower ..." (_Marmion_, vi. 2.)

is a mistake for _bratticing_, timber-work, a word of obscure origin of which several corruptions are found in early Scottish. It is rather a favourite with writers of "sword and feather" novels. Other sham antiques are _slug-horn_, Chatterton's absurd perversion of the Gaelic _slogan_, war-cry, copied by Browning--

"Dauntless the _slug-horn_ to my lips I set, And blew 'Childe Roland to the Dark Tower came.'"

and Scott's extraordinary misuse of _warison_, security, a doublet of _garrison_, as though it meant "war sound"--

"Or straight they sound their _warison_, And storm and spoil thy garrison." (_Lay_, iv. 21.)

Scott also gave currency to _niddering_, a coward--

"Faithless, mansworn,[13] and _niddering_." (_Ivanhoe_, Ch. 42.)

which has been copied by Lytton and Kingsley, and elaborated into _nidderling_ by Mr Crockett. It is a misprint in an early edition of William of Malmesbury for _niding_ or _nithing_, cognate with Ger. _Neid_, envy. This word, says Camden, is mightier than _Abracadabra_,[14] since--

"It hath levied armies and subdued rebellious enemies. For when there was a dangerous rebellion against King William Rufus, and Rochester Castle, then the most important and strongest fort of this realm, was stoutly kept against him, after that he had but proclaimed that his subjects should repair thither to his camp, upon no other penalty, but that whosoever should refuse to come should be reputed a _niding_, they swarmed to him immediately from all sides in such numbers that he had in a few days an infinite army, and the rebels therewith were so terrified that they forthwith yielded." (_Remains concerning Britain._)

_Derring-do_ is used several times by Spenser, who explains it as "manhood and chevalrie." It is due to his misunderstanding of a passage in Lidgate, in which it is an imitation of Chaucer, complicated by a misprint. Scott took it from Spenser--

"'Singular,' he again muttered to himself, 'if there be two who can do a deed of such _derring-do_.'" (_Ivanhoe_, Ch. 29.)

and from him it passed to Bulwer Lytton and later writers.

Such words as these, the illegitimate offspring of genius, are to be distinguished from the "ghost-words" which dimly haunt the dictionaries without ever having lived (see p. 201). Speaking generally, we may say that no word is ever created _de novo_. The names invented for commercial purposes are not exceptions to this law. _Bovril_ is compounded of Lat. _bos_, ox, and _vril_,[15] the mysterious power which plays so important a part in Lytton's _Coming Race_, while _Tono-Bungay_ suggests _tonic_. The only exception to this is _gas_, the arbitrary coinage of the Belgian chemist Van Helmont in the 17th century. But even this is hardly a new creation, because we have Van Helmont's own statement that the word _chaos_ was vaguely present to his mind. _Chortle_ has, however, secured a limited currency, and is admitted by the _New English Dictionary_--

"O frabjous day! Callooh! callay! He _chortled_ in his joy." (_Through the Looking-Glass._)

and, though an accurate account of the _boojum_ is lacking, most people know it to be a dangerous variety of _snark_.

FOOTNOTES:

[6] _Abominable_ is regularly spelt _abhominable_ in late Old French and Mid. English, as though meaning "inhuman," Lat. _homo_, _homin-_, a man.

[7] This etymology is doubted by some authorities.

[8] But the word comes to us from French. In the 16th century such puzzles were called _rebus de Picardie_, because of their popularity in that province.

[9] For simplicity the term Old French is used here to include all words not in modern use. Where a modern form exists it is given in parentheses.

[10] The name was thus applied to a sail before it was given to a mast. Although the Italian word means "middle," it is perhaps, in this particular sense, a popular corruption of an Arabic word of quite different meaning. The discussion of so difficult a problem is rather out of place in a book intended for the general reader, but I cannot refrain from giving a most interesting note which I owe to Mr W. B. Whall, Master Mariner, the author of _Shakespeare's Sea Terms Explained_--"The sail was (until c. 1780) lateen, _i.e._, triangular, like the sail of a galley. The Saracens, or Moors, were the great galley sailors of the Mediterranean, and _mizen_ comes from Arab., _miezen_, balance. The _mizen_ is, even now, a sail that 'balances,' and the reef in a mizen is still called the 'balance' reef."

[11] "I have _endeavoured_ to moderate his tyrannical choler" (Urquhart's Translation, 1653).

[12] The credit of first using the word in the political sense is claimed both for George Jacob Holyoake and Professor Minto.

[13] From Anglo-Sax. _m[=a]n_, deceit, cognate with the first syllable of Ger. _Meineid_, perjury.

[14] This word, which looks like an unsuccessful palindrome, belongs to the language of medieval magic. It seems to be artificially elaborated from {abraxas}, a word of Persian origin used by a sect of Greek gnostics. Its letters make up the magic number 365, supposed to represent the number of spirits subject to the supreme being.

[15] In coining _vril_ Lytton probably had in mind Lat. _vis_, _vires_, power, or the adjective _virilis_.